


Thicker than Water

by neatomosquito



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Demonic Possession, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Spoilers for Season 2, inspired by that ep in s1 whose name i forget, semi-character study, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 14:31:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15121463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neatomosquito/pseuds/neatomosquito
Summary: Strand receives the call in the middle of the night - Alex has been arrested, and she'll only cooperate if she's locked in the interrogation with him.





	Thicker than Water

_Just you_ , was what the officer on the phone had said. And then he’d said it again, like he almost couldn’t believe it himself. _She’ll only speak with you_.

Strand’s shirt was pushed to his elbows, and tiredness curled at the corners of his eyes. Sitting in the waiting room was its own special sort of torture. The clock ticked on the wall, once 3:23, now 3:42. He ran a hand through his hair and tried to breathe the nerves away. She’d declined a phone call, a lawyer, a _glass of water_ for god’s sake.

Once his hair had been sufficiently mused he tapped his fingers on his legs. In a rhythm, then a new rhythm, then a new one.

10 seconds passed. He stood up and marched over to the lady manning the desk.

“This is ridiculous,” he said, curtly, angry. “I’ve been waiting here for—”

“20 minutes,” the lady interrupted him. And he was suddenly aware that she was working the graveyard shift, and didn’t appreciate this anymore than he did. It did nothing for the anger curling in his gut. “5 minutes after the last time you complained. Sir, I assure you, they are not doing this to _inconvenience_ you.”

Strand stood his ground. “Why call me in the middle of the night if my presence wasn’t _absolutely necessary_?”

“I don’t make those kind of decisions, sir,” the woman gritted out. “I can’t help you.”

“Can I speak to the officer who called me, please?” Strand placed a hand on the desk as a challenge. “I need to…” He took in a deep breath, forcing his composure to retain itself. _Please_ , he begged himself. _Please, just until you get to leave this place with her._

The woman was either too tired to keep fighting or decided that Strand was going to keep making a nuisance of himself until she folded into his demands.

Tightening her jaw, she dialled an internal line. “He’s asking for officer Maynard.” A pause, and he could see her roll her eyes. “Yes, he knows that, sir.” Another pause, and, begrudgingly, she turned to Strand; “Are you aware that he is, currently, in a top priority interrogation?”

Strand leant forward. “Intimately aware.”

She spent just enough time to shoot him a deadpan look before turning her attention back to the phone. “Yeah, he knows. Can you—” Another pause, and she seemed to relax. “Ok, thank you, sir.”

She hung up the phone and turned to Strand. “He’ll be here in just a moment. Why don’t you take a seat?”

“I think I’d prefer to stand, thank you,” Strand did, however, move away from the desk to linger a little nearer the doorway, where he imagined he was nearer to the interrogation room, and the parties sequestered within it.

There was a buzzing, and a younger, slightly overweight man pushed through the door. He looked tired, purple bruises bloomed under his eyes, and his skin seemed pale and sickly under the fluorescent lights. “You must be Dr. Strand?”

“Officer Maynard,” Strand nodded, greeting the officer with a nod. “I understand you requested my presence.”

“Yes, we did,” the officer sighed. “Ugly scenes. You’re lucky your little friend didn’t kill the poor girl.”

“Officer, lets pretend that I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Strand supposed, drily. “Or, not pretend, actually. Considering that I _do_ have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The officer regarded him for a moment, and ran a hand over his face. “Let’s go to my desk. I think there are some ground rules we should be covering.”

“Why didn’t Alex request a lawyer?”

“I don’t know,” Maynard answered, annoyed.

“Why didn’t she call me herself?” Strand demanded. “She had one call. She knows my number.”

“Sir, I have absolutely no—”

“When did she request to speak to me?” Strand demanded.

Maynard shared a conspiratorial glance with the woman behind the desk. He begrudgingly turned his attention back to Strand. “That, I can answer. But I’d prefer to do it sitting down.” His tiredness poured out as the light adjusted, elongating the lines in his face. “Strand, we have a lot to cover and not much time to cover it in. This will go much faster if you cooperate.

 _Fast_ , his heart beat, desperate like a trapped animal, in his chest. _Fast is good_.

Strand swallowed down his thousand questions and nodded curtly, barely restraining himself from begging Maynard to take him directly to the interrogation room. Where at least he could see her, know her. Begin to understand where the understanding and knowing of her had gotten the violence, or lack thereof, in her character so…wrong.

He followed Maynard through the precinct, shadowing him like a car on a busy, slow freeway, trying to speed the process along. He could tell that the officer was becoming annoyed, but the reality of that didn’t unsettle him at all.

Maynard offered Strand a seat next to his desk, and sat behind his with a bump.

“Can I see her?” Strand blurted out, already sensing the answer.

“Short answer, yes,” Maynard seemed to understand that Strand wasn’t going to cooperate like he’d hoped. “Long answer is that we have a lot to discuss, and not heaps of time to discuss it.”

“Why is that?”

“The chief doesn’t want us arresting her for a number of reasons,” Maynard waved his hand. “Most prominently, the girl who your friend attacked isn’t pressing charges.” He cleared his throat. “ _Yet_.”

“Is she here now?”

“She’s at the hospital tonight, and tomorrow we’ll interview her a second time to try to convince her to go through with the procedure, but as for now,” Maynard looked grim. “She’s either too frightened to make any moves, or too disturbed.”

“So if she _doesn’t_ press charges, Alex will be released tomorrow morning,” Strand considered, then checked his watch. “Well, today, a little later.”

“We don’t have much time,” Maynard nodded. He placed his hands together on the table and leaned forward. “We believe that a confession from her would be a massive help in convincing the victim to enact her rights. Do you understand me?”

“You want me to get her to confess,” Strand supposed. “And you don’t want my personal involvement to get in the way.”

Maynard sat back, please, placing one hand on the top of his belly. “I’m pleased I didn’t have to spell it out for you.”

“Of course not,” Strand said, smoothly. “Don’t worry, officer. Ms Reagan and I know each other in a purely professional context anyway.” _Lie_. “You don’t have anything to worry about.” _Lie. Lie, Lie, Lie._

Strand swallowed down the dissenting voice, tapping his fingers on his leg again, suddenly nervous.

“We understand the context of your arrangement,” Maynard said, and Strand couldn’t tell if he was telling Strand that the gambit was up, and he knew that Alex and Strand were a little more than work colleagues, or if he was affirming that which Strand had just blatantly lied about. “Now.” He pulled out a key and unlocked his desk, rifling through and pulling out a binder. It was small, and slim. “We have a protocol for this, and a line of questions we want you to stick to.” He flipped the binder open, skimming through the pages. “You are not an interrogator, you are a civilian, and whatever line of questioning you may think is important is not backed up by years of training and experience.” Maynard looked up sharply. “Do you understand me?”

Strand’s throat went a little dry. They had to let him speak to her properly. They _had_ to. Panic threatened to cloud his judgement, and he felt the rhythm of the fingers on his leg speed up, as if beyond his control. But when he spoke, his voice was curt and normal. “Yes, of course.” Then he paused, finally indulging himself. “May I ask, what were the particulars of the assault?”

Now Maynard looked properly uncomfortable, and he hesitated before answering. “It’s pretty grim.”

“I’m sure I can handle it,” Strand assured him, very unsure.

Maynard shuffled around his desk, pulling out a sheet of paper. He cleared his throat and read. “Witness reports confirm that Reagan attacked the Victim, Melissa Grundy, at 2145, two blocks from Grundy’s home. Both were leaving the same bar. The bouncer told us that Reagan tackled Grundy without provocation. She then began attacking Grundy, in particular her face and neck, with her finger nails.”

Something cold washed down Strand’s spine.

“The alleged perpetrator made significant impact to Grundy’s face, with the most prominent wounds beside her left ear and at her foreheads hairline.” He paused again, pale. “Witness accounts from the Bouncer who managed to separate Reagan from Grundy reported that, in a series of yells, Reagan had told all who had been watching that she wanted to rip,” another pause. “ _Rip_ the girls face off and affix it to her own.” This time he took a deep shuddering breath. “Upside down.”

* * *

There was a low deep beep somewhere in the building, and Strand twisted on his chair, uncomfortable. He could see himself in the two way mirror across the room. He could see the grey at his temples, his glasses, his rumpled shirt which, at 4 in the morning, had nearly been on him for 24 hours. He could see deep smudges under his eye, a strange grey pallor to his skin. The beard he’d let grow was turning shaggy and twisted. He looked sick. He looked terrible. He needed a holiday and a shower and about two months straight of comatose sleep.

He needed to see Alex.

He heard voices outside the door to the interrogation room and sat up a little straighter. He was suddenly, stupidly, aware of his appearance. He tried, in vain, to straighten his beard and push his nearly too-long hair back from his face.

The door creaked open and two officers led her in. She didn’t look much better than him; dried blood on her chin, eyes defiantly downcast and surrounded by wrinkles and dark bags. Her hair had been twisted back into a rude facsimile of a bun, with matted bits and tangles all scooped up together.

She was pale and small, and she wouldn’t look at him.

“Alex,” he said. His voice had no impact, no power. Just a sheen of sadness, an undercurrent of desperation.

The two officers who led her in took their positions. One stood in the corner, and the other came to sit beside Strand.

“ _Just_ Strand,” Alex finally spoke. Her voice was…off. Like she’d spoken through a poorly wired microphone. When she spoke again, however, the trick had disappeared. “I was clear.”

“So were we,” the officer next to Strand wasn’t Maynard. His name-tag read “Stephenson”. “You could speak with Strand _so long as_ we were also in the room with him.”

Alex raised her hands to show she’d been handcuffed to the desk. “Are you worried I will harm him?” Strand blinked, the _him_ had had that same guttural sound. Slightly electronic. He wondered if there was some strange echo in the room.

Stephenson ignored her. He turned to Strand. “We can begin now, Doctor.”

Strand stared at Alex for a moment longer. Her head was bowed.

Stephenson cleared his throat. “Strand.”

“Sorry,” Strand blinked and turned his attention to the paper he was unfurling in his fingers. “Can we please have confirmation that you are Alexandra Reagan, aged 34?”

“Sure.” She didn’t look up.

Strand watched her for a moment, trying to shake the dread from his stomach. “Can we confirm your address, please?”

This time she did look up, and met his eyes, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “You know where I live, Strand.” Her voice took on the same duality as before, and this time Strand swore he wasn’t imagining it. He had half a mind to get up and ask Stephenson or Maynard intimate questions about the acoustics of the space.

“Please recite where you live for the record,” Stephenson interjected.

Alex was stubbornly silent.

Stephenson sighed and turned to Strand, urging him on.

“Uh, please,” Strand scrambled to remember how Stephenson had phrased it. “recite where you live.” He paused. “For the record.”

“203/45 Victoria parade, Seattle,” Alex spoke fluidly.

In a flash Strand remembered the building; the brick, the dark foyer, the slightly off-putting smell of a newly installed lift. He remembered her door, painted the same dark brown as the rest on her floor, the layout of her kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, the bed. The little balcony where Alex would pretend you could nearly see the ocean. He remembered her giggling at him as he strained his eyes for it.

Alex looked up and met his eyes and smiled, as if she knew what he was thinking. But the smile was dead, and her eyes were too dark, too unblinking. Suddenly the dimensions of her face seemed wrong, and her mouth twisted unnaturally, and her eyes darkened. Strand blinked and it was her face, nothing had changed. But the strangeness lingered, like the smell of burnt rubber.

“In your own words,” Strand read off the paper, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Can you please recount your interaction with the victim?”

“I had no interaction with the victim,” Alex replied, bored.

“We have CCTV footage of you assaulting her, as well as 5 separate eye witness accounts,” Stephenson interrupted.

Alex glared at him, and maybe it was the way the light above her lengthened the lines in her face, or the darkness in her eyes, or the strangeness which continued to linger, or the true hatred in her snarl, but Stephenson fell silent, and stared at his hands.

“He’s right, Alex,” Strand felt that going off script was called for. He felt the dread in his stomach ride up into his throat, and something like fear tightening his lungs. When he spoke next it was nearly a whisper, nearly strangled. “We know you did this.”

“I thought you were a sceptic, Dr. Strand,” Alex tilted her head.

“A sceptic of the paranormal,” Strand corrected her. “Not the validity of CCTV footage.”

“You were the one who taught me that footage can be doctored, ‘witnesses’ can be paid off, victims can be actresses, special FX make up can be applied,” Alex relaxed back into her chair, handcuffs chinking against the table. “You know me, Richard. Would I do this?”

Strand’s mouth dried. His fingers tightened around the paper. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “No.”

“So what do we do now?” Alex asked him. “What’s the next step?”

“Stick to the paper, Strand,” Stephenson composed himself to grit it out.

Strand cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “What was your relationship with Melissa Grundy?”

“I’d never met her, and I don’t recognise that name,” Alex brushed off the question brusquely and leant forward. “The question is, are the police lying? Am I lying? Am I capable of this?”

Strand squared his shoulders and turned his attention back to the paper. “Why were you at the bar last night?”

“I have insomnia and I’m sick of staring at the shadows on my bedroom wall. A bar seemed like a nice compromise, especially one that only charges $3 for a beer on a Tuesday night.” Alex brushed the question away as quickly and diligently as the previous one. “Now, if you believe the footage and trust that the police aren’t setting me up – because, honestly, why would they? What motivation would they have? Alex Reagan isn’t at the top of any hit lists. Even all the cults and secrets orders she’s been annoying have targeted her friends before they’ve come after her. Besides, killing me would be a lot faster than doctoring footage and paying off a pretty girl to play my very own homecoming queen.”

Strand is almost certain that Alex is having some sort of psychotic break. The solution is easy, but still terrifying. He thought of her sitting up, each night, staring out from her balcony and eventually, eventually, pretending she could hear waves, and smell salt. That the rain coming down was sea-spray, the cooing of pigeons the squawks of seagulls. He felt all of this at once, despair and sorrow and apology. He wanted to take her away, send her to sleep, make her better. He wondered why her psychiatrists hadn’t seen the signs, why Nic hadn’t, why _he_ hadn’t. He nearly asked to see Stephenson outside, when Alex spoke again.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Alex offered. “I’m not crazy. This isn’t some sort of psychotic episode. You know I’ve been sleeping a little better, have been taking more time for myself. Why now? Why now, when I seem to be doing so much better?”

He remembered seeing her knitting once, when he came into her office. She’d told him that she was taking it up, that Nic had told her that it was important to learnt a craft. That it helped her brain function. They’d rolled their eyes and laughed and eaten together. He remembered though, that she had seemed happier, and that once he had left, she’d attacked the knitting with a fervour, eyes fixed on the needles.

“Sometimes people with psychosis try to hide their symptoms from their loved ones,” Strand offered as an explanation, all the wind taken from his sails, all the strength from his voice.

“You’re mourning me,” Alex supposed, analysing him, nearly offended. “You’re mourning me and I’m still here. This is just like your wife, your daughter, your sister. You push the people who care about you further and further away by _making things up_. Coralee wasn’t dead. Charlie didn’t hate you. Cheryl never though you’d killed your wife except for her briefest, lowest moment. The people in your life don’t disappear, Richard, they lose their way for an instant and you don’t let them back in.”

“I let you back in,” Strand blurted, before he could help himself.

Alex tried to hide her satisfaction, but it was painted all over her face. “When did I lose my way?”

“You betrayed my trust,” Strand said, feeling the old wounds reopening. “You think that professional integrity is more important than personal agency and privacy. You’re selfish.”

“Why did you let me back in?”

“Because people act selfishly when they’re in pain,” Strand replied, raw.

“That explains why I acted the way I did,” Alex provoked him, leaning forward. “And, I suppose, how you could justify forgiving me. But it wasn’t the motivation, was it?”

“I was being selfish too,” Strand said, eyes now fixed on the script in his hands. “I wanted to protect you from all of this, but I wanted you…” He paused. “I wanted you _with_ me, more.”

“Were you in pain?”

“In a way,” Strand replied, and decided to stop speaking. He met Alex’s eyes, level, and for that same split second, didn’t recognise her again. Not her hair or her eyes or her mouth. The second ended and her face became soft and familiar, and the strangeness starched the air again. He needed to sleep. He needed to wake up tomorrow and for all of this to have been a nightmare.

“Do you need a break?” Stephenson piped up beside him, and Strand started, forgetting that he’d been there.

“No, I’m fine,” Strand straightened and smoothed the paper on the table. “Ms Reagan, why did you decide to leave the bar when you did?”

“The demons told me to,” her smile was small, but villainous. “Or I’d decided that getting home and getting some sleep before work tomorrow was a good idea. Up to you.”

“Did you intend to kill, or simply hurt, Ms Grundy?”

“I don’t know who that is,” Alex replied, bored.

“The woman whose face you tried to peel off,” Strand retorted.

“Oh, yes, well,” Alex shrugged. “I didn’t do that. So I guess, neither?” She clasped her hands together in the cuff links, bowing as they tugged on her wrists. “Strand, I’m curious, when you got the call tonight, what did you think was going on?”

 _Not this_ , Strand watched her, wary. “That you would be more cooperative if we gave into your demand.”

Alex bent forward, conspiratorial. “Did you expect me to beg you to save me? Did you think you’d swoop in, like a hero?” She smiled. “Like my own guardian angel?”

 _Yes_. Strand tightened his jaw. “Can we return to the questioning, please?”

“I’ll be good, in just a moment,” Alex promised. “You’re just the most notorious sceptic in the world. I’m curious at how your brain would function when something so absolutely _strange_ happens.”

“You think this is strange?” Strand asked her.

“I think this is unbelievably inexplicable,” Alex smiled. “You’ve seen me when I’m tired. I make poor journalistic decisions. I antagonise my friends and get a bit lazy about the dishes. I go on long walks in the woods.” Her voice was beginning to take on the duality again. A shuffling throughout the room. Like static, like thunder. The hairs on Strand’s neck stood on end. “I’m not violent.”

“It seems you are.”

“But you know me,” Alex reminded him. “I’m _not_.”

“Maybe I didn’t know you,” Strand told her, feeling tiredness tugging mania. His mind slipped a thousand times, through a thousand possibilities. What did she _want_ him to say? What was she baiting from him?

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short,” Alex laughed. It was pitiful, and high pitched. It sounded like what a creature would do if it were in pain. “You’re the most careful person in existence when it comes to meeting people. It took you days and _days_ to trust me. And even longer to like me.”

“That’s not true,” Strand shook his head.

“Oh?”

“I trusted you too quickly,” Strand said, almost convinced his was right. “And now I’ve paid for it.”

“Well, Melissa Grundy was really the one who paid for it,” Alex said. And then, before Stephenson could get too excited, she locked in him a glare. “If you believe this ramshackle excuse for a police department, that is.”

“I do,” Strand told her, staring at her. He wanted her to blink.

She refused. “Well, well,” she appraised him. “If you can believe that, I suppose you can believe that you can see the ocean from the east of the city.” Strand’s throat tightened. “And if you can believe that, I wonder what else you’ve been pretending to be sceptical about?”

“The scientific theory—”

“Was developed by someone who believed in witches, demons and natural and diabolic magics,” Alex interrupted him, scornfully. “Francis Bacon, right? He thought there was _merit_ in alchemy. He used his theories to prove the existence of God. He spent so much time sucking up to the monarchy I’m surprised he had time to write out a scientific theory at all.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Maybe I’m not Alex,” Alex finally offered, spelling it out like she was speaking with a particularly slow three year old. “You’ve been pretending you haven’t been thinking it. Like it wasn’t one of the first things that came to mind.”

“You’ve had a psychotic episode and you need medical attention,” Strand decided.

“Richard,” Alex looked nearly sad, and shook her head. And then when she spoke, a chorus of voices spilled out of her mouth like bees. “ _I’m not sick_.”

Outside the room there was a rumbling, voices yelling, a siren going. Stephenson’s radio crackled, and he spoke into it quickly. Strand’s eyes didn’t leave Alex’s face which had morphed again from familiar and soft to strange and distasteful and hard. This time when he blinked it didn’t switch back. Something base and animal in him was screaming for him to run, or fight. Something in the back of his mind was warning him, warning him; _danger, danger, danger_. Like a siren flashing.

“Stay here,” Stephenson ordered Strand. He spared a glance for Alex and, after half a beat of hesitation, checked that the handcuffs were still stuck to the table. “You, don’t move. Don’t move at _all_.”

Alex didn’t respond. The shadows around her lengthened, and when she spread her fingers, the silhouette against the back wall imprinted them as long, longer than her forearm.

“Buckley,” Stephenson nodded to the cop in the corner. “You’re with me. Once we’ve assessed the damage, I’ll send you back.”

The younger officer nodded, and then looked skittishly from Alex to Strand, before following Stephenson out the open door and into the precinct.

“Finally alone,” Alex said, like a growl. Her voice was low, her eyes were dark. When she smiled at him, the whites and the iris had taken on the colour of the pupil. Strand adjusted his glasses and looked again, and didn’t know whether or not he was relieved when they were back to their usual warm brown. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“You’re not Alex,” Strand said, and it was like a weight being taken off his chest.

Alex growled a laugh. “ _Good_. Finally. I thought it would take a lot longer than that, it’s almost disappointing, really. I thought you were supposed to be this fanatical sceptic. I chose a good mark.” Her shoulders shrugged. “I can’t complain, though. The surprise I left for the officers will only keep them out of the room for a moment. Not to mention, fucking with this room’s CCTV footage with only your hell-given powers is a bit of a headache.”

“Who are you?” Strand demanded.

“Unimportant,” the thing controlling Alex made her shrug her shoulders, made her purse her lips and itch at her wrist. Strand suddenly felt sick. “The myth-makers never learnt my name. And I certainly won’t be giving it to you.”

“I thought demons loved having their names spoken,” Strand countered, narrowing his eyes.

“No one likes hearing a human attempting a demonic name,” Alex’s voice scoffed. “It’s like trying to listen to an American order food in another country. Too loud, too obnoxious.” Her head tilted. “A little too hard on your r’s, if I’m honest.”

“Let her _go_ ,” Strand demanded. His hands balled to fists on the table.

“I’m getting to that, don’t worry,” the demon assured him. “But first for a little housekeeping. We have a couple of options here. Not all of them end with Alex breathing free air when I finally get out of here, and not all of them end with you breathing at all, either. But I know you’re a man that appreciates thoroughness.” The demons eyes glinted as well. “That’s what I can gather from Alex’s memories, by the way. _She_ appreciated the thoroughness as well.”

Strand felt sick. A real sick, the kind that felt as if his insides were melting together, roiling in his stomach.

“Option one,” the demon said. “You try to do something stupid, like call a priest or your once-dead-wife, and I get Alex to admit to the face mauling thing and her life is ruined forever.”

Strand tightened his mouth.

“Option two,” the demon held up two fingers. “You try to exorcise Alex yourself, and I’ll scratch your eyes out and leave you to die.”

Strand felt his heart in his throat.

“Option three,” three fingers, and a wry smile. “you call the police back in here, and I’ll kill them myself. Slowly. With gusto.”

“No,” Strand said quickly, thinking about Maynard and Stephenson and the other, younger one, who Stephenson had called ‘Buckley’. They were in over their heads. They needed to be protected.

“An American Hero,” the demon hissed. “Option four, and, I’d say, probably the winner.” Without a thought the demon snapped the handcuffs and reached into Alex’s jean pocket. It withdraw a small syringe. Barely 10mls. “Is that you give me a sample of your blood, and I promise to leave this poor girl relatively sane and healthy.”

Strand swallowed. “My blood.”

“Yes.”

Hesitantly; “what for?”

“Oh, something you’re definitely going to regret,” the demon shrugged Alex’s shoulders and twister her face and played with her hair.

Strand stared for a long, unbroken moment. “Alex.” He said, quietly. “Alex, I need to speak with you.”

The demon frowned. “Alex isn’t home right now. Do you want me to take a message?”

“Start small, Alex,” Strand said, he wanted to repeat her name over and over again. “A finger. A toe. It’s easier with a small amount of control. You’re not a 12 year old girl in a bunker. _Alex_.”

The demon froze, for just a moment, and something scared and fragile skipped across its face before disappearing.

“ _Good_ ,” Strand breathed, leaning forward. The demon stared at him like it wanted to speak, but its lips refused to open. “ _Yes_. Good. Good!”

“I did it—” Alex’s voice come out weak. “ _The blood, Strand, give me the blood_ —”

“Alex,” Strand leant forward.

He saw the war waging across her face and then, in broken sentences, “it’s…don’t…you need to…think about the blood.” She let out a harsh breath, like she was in pain. He wanted to reach for her, but when he moved she pulled away. Her face was a sheen of sweat. Her eyes were dogged, animal, blood-shot. “Don’t give the blood. They can’t without the blood.” Her eyes were wide. “Theycan’twithouttheblood—”

“I will _kill her_ ,” the face contorted back to hatred and anger. The voice was full of sounds, a million sounds layered upon each other. “if you don’t. I will make her stop breathing. I will force her heart to stop.”

“And you will lose _all_ leverage,” Strand gritted out.

“ _I will rip your heart out myself, with my own hands, the servant of the Adversary and the enemy of man, I will rip your heart out with my teeth and nail and tongue and will use the flesh and bone and blood and blood of the watcher, of the holy man, to raise the sceptre of the—”_

“Run…” Alex made out weakly. “ _Run_ Strand. I won’t let them find you.”

“I’m not leaving you.” Strand’s voice was steady, his heart pushed blood in his ears. “Not now. Not ever.” Strand leant forward, and this time when he grabbed at Alex’s hand, she let him hold it. “Alex, you won’t let them hurt me. I know you. I _know_ you.”

She gasped, in sorrow or pain or some marriage of the two. “I’m too tired.”

“I know,” his voice cracked.

“I can’t hold him forever,” she made out, voice barely a whisper.

He swallowed, hard. “I know.”

She watched him for one final moment, before a single tear wound down her face, getting lost in the soft, blood stained fabric of her shirt. “I love you.”

Strand’s eyes widened with a sudden, horrible understanding. “Alex, _no_ —”

Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she slumped down on the table, utterly still.

Strand stood, reaching over the table. His fingers shook as he searched her neck for a pulse. The skin was warm, but Clammy. He couldn’t find it. He couldn’t find it.

There was a knock at the door, but he couldn’t find his voice. Something black and large and dangerous was crowding his vision. Something was choking him. A snake like panic, a constrictor around his waist. He couldn’t breathe, he felt sick, sick, _sick_. His insides were collapsing, his brain was failing. He couldn’t find a pulse.

The black spots in his vision expanded, and his breathing hammered, and he lost his grip on reality, falling onto the floor, snapping his head against the hard ground.

* * *

“I think he’s waking up,” the male voice was familiar, and whispered. Strand could hear beeping, shuffling. A tv turned on low volume, a humming in the background.

“Oh, yeah,” there was a squeaking, as if someone was adjusting themselves in a chair with old springs. “He is.”

Footsteps, and a figure next to him. A girl took his hand. Her hands were warm, and she smelt like men’s deodorant. “Strand?”

He blinked, looking up at Ruby. Her hair had been pushed back into a ponytail, and it was one of the rare occasions that you could see her entire face. She looked tired. She wasn’t wearing any makeup.

He tried to speak, but his throat was dry, and his lungs were empty. He took in a breath. “ _Alex_.”

“Down the hall,” Ruby said, assuringly, and the panic which had swirled up deep and black abated a little. “The paramedics…” Ruby cleared her throat. “Unimportant. Get some rest. We can talk about this all later.”

“Is he alright?” Strand closed his eyes, and placed the voice as Nic’s.

“He’s just asking after her.”

“She’s been asking after him as well.”

Strand sank back into the drugs in his system, the pillow soft beneath his head.

* * *

When Strand awoke to see Alex sitting in his room, he thought she’d visited him as a ghost. If demons were real, then ghosts could be real as well.

He caught himself before he spiralled. It was enough of a leap to presume that biblical tradition and mythology was completely true, and something else entirely to presume his experience with Alex meant that everything he’d worked his entire life to disprove was also true.

“You’re awake,” she stood when she saw him looking at her, and reached out to hold his wrist. Her palm was warm where she pressed it, and he could feel something like a pulse as her wrist pressed against his arm.

“I thought you were dead,” his voice was hoarse. He looked at her, drank her in.

She laughed a little, moving in closer to sit on his bed. “I think I technically was. Though a nurse told me I shouldn’t tell people that.”

“Technically?” Strand frowned. “As in…”

Alex worried her lip with her teeth. “As in my heart stopped. But the police had a defib on site.”

“They saved you,” Strand said, figuring it through. He felt like he was trying to navigate through a dense fog.

“Yeah,” Alex shuffled a little more onto the bed, and Strand moved over, and gingerly sat up to make room for her. “Look, Richard—”

“You don’t need to explain,” he interrupted her.

“I want to…” she breathed quickly. “I want to…oh God, I am _so_ sorry. I can’t believe…that poor _girl_ —”

“Alex,” he pulled her closer, and closer. “Don’t…you can’t. You can’t think that.”

“If I had fought back earlier, if I had…if I had _known_ what was going on, I could have done something,” Alex shook her head. “I’ve been investigating this for…for ages. I should have seen the signs. Anger. A loss of control. Evil thoughts.”

“I know you won’t hear this now,” Strand said, voice low. “And I know it might take a while for you to believe, but you haven’t done anything wrong. There was nothing you could have done.”

“I could have come to you,” Alex said, voice cracking, blinking up at the ceiling to dispel the growing pools of tears. “I could have _tried_ —”

“You did try, Alex,” he said, tender, turning her face so that she’d look at him. All the lines in her face are the same, her eyes are soft and sad and a warm, cherished brown. Her freckles were thrown up into relief against her pale skin. “You beat him.”

Her voice was so low he nearly didn’t hear it. “I nearly killed you.”

“You _died_.”

“The nurse said we shouldn’t say that,” Alex reminded him, quickly wiping a tear away.

“The nurse didn’t know you were possessed by an agent of hell,” Strand informed her. He moved back as she adjusted herself to lie with him, head pressed onto his chest. The weight was familiar, the smell of her hair, the sound of her breath. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, eyes closed, nearly relaxed.

“It’s strange to hear you say it,” Alex said.

“It’s strange to think it,” Strand admitted.

Tomorrow they’d have things to discuss and understand. Tomorrow he could ask her how she died, how she knew that the demon wouldn’t be able to sustain a dead host, how scared she must have been. Tomorrow they could make sure Melissa Grundy had money and family and a support system, and health insurance and make up to hide her scars. Tomorrow he could apologise to her for not acting sooner, and she could apologise to him to dying right in front of him. But now they curled up around each other, remembering how to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime in the s2/s3 break. Does anyone else think that Alex was always supposed to be possessed but then there was a Lost tv show moment where everyone guessed it so they had to back out of it. Anyway. Here's to s3B!


End file.
